Scott sighed, it was quite literally the only thing that he could do didn’t require him to move any length of distance and exhaust him. He felt gross in his own skin. He turned his head and looked at the broken AC unit. It was mocking him. Boyd, his next-door neighbor, had gone to get some tools from the hardware store so he could take a look at it. The day was supposed to be a simple one. He finally got the courage to invite him over and his AC decided to die on him. The old thing needed to be replaced but Scott hoped it would’ve held on just another week when he got his paycheck. Fate, however, seemed to have other plans.
Scott was currently sitting on his floor a small fan in between his legs and positioned up towards his face when the front door of the apartment rang. Probably Boyd, Scott quickly set the little fan aside and rushed to the door. He skidded past the wall mirror and looked at himself. Why? He didn’t know, he knew he was already sweaty and probably messy looking and there was no time to change that now. He looked through the peephole and saw that it was indeed Boyd and he had a lot of stuff with him. Scott opened the door and looked at what Boyd had with him.
“What’s all this?”
Boyd had a large bag of ice in one hand, a bag full of tools in the other and an extra large fan at his feet.
“ Well after I got the tools I just went over to the convenience store and picked up some ice for myself and a fan for you in case I failed miserably at fixing your AC.” Boyd laughed, “ Can I come in, this ice is pretty cold. And do you mind if I stow the ice in your fridge?”
Scott’s brain seemed to short-circuit during Boyd’s explanation because his initial answer was a very intelligent sounding up, “Uh.”
Stop staring at his biceps, you idiot! Scott mentally slapped himself back to reality. “ Yes, of course! To all of the above.”
He allows Boyd in and then grabs the handle to the box containing the extra large fan and follows Boyd into the apartment.
“ Y-you didn’t have to do all that. I’m getting my paycheck next week so I’ll be getting a new A/C soon.”
“ Yeah but…” Boyd reluctantly agreed, “There’s a heat advisory for the next few days and it’s not wise to have no air circulating. You can keep it in the living room for now and then when you go to bed you can bring it with you. I mean, if you really don’t want I can always t-”
“ No, no! You were really nice to do this. Thank you.” Scott backtracked, fearing he sounded ungrateful. In fact, he was quite the opposite.
“No, I shouldn’t have assumed. I should’ve asked you first.” Boyd admitted, a little embarrassed. He had been looking to do something for Scott for a while now and when the A/C broke he thought he’d been given a chance to show off a little. Ever since he was little he had been a tinkerer, drove his grandmother crazy. Luckily whatever he took apart he could put it back together, sometimes making it even better than before.
“ I want it.” Scott reassured, taking the time to think of how that might’ve sounded, “ I really want it.”
The two guys stare at each other as Scott’s words float between them, both of them embarrassed at their own imaginations running wild. Boyd cleared his throat and looked away, the tools in the bag shifted.
“I’ll just go look at that A/C unit-“
“ And I’ll set up the fan and put the ice in the freezer!” Scott took the ice from Boyd and rushed away into the kitchen.
